automated feeders (to deliver 3 feeds per
night) were calibrated and the feeding regimes implemented. The
automated feeders consisted of a 25 cm long plastic cylinder with a
circular plastic plate attached to a small motor at one end. Each feeder
was suspended upright above each tank and rested on a plastic cone
fitted into the tank lid. The pellets were poured into the top of each
cylinder and the plate rotated a set number of revolutions to distribute
the pellet into the tank. The plate speed and number of revolutions
were previously calibrated against the quantity of pellet to be
delivered into each tank per feeding period. All tanks were
supplemented with fresh blue mussels (M. edulis) on the weekends
to address possible nutritional deficiencies in the pellet diet (Johnston
et al., 2007) and hence maximise growth and survival. Automated
feeders were not used when feeding mussels, but mussels were fed in
sufficient quantities to allow multiple feeding by lobsters throughout
the night for both treatment groups. To minimise cannibalism in
recently settled post-pueruli, this size group was fed mussels for the
first two months of the trial before being weaned onto the pellet diet